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COMMITTEE FOR A NEW ANDOVER CHARTER

Questions and Answers

PART 1

The Andover Town Charter is the document which establishes the structure of how we govern ourselves. Our current Town Meeting form of government dates back almost 400 years to when Andover was a farming community with a population of a few hundred people and when only a few dozen male landowners could vote. Andover’s population is now over 36,000 with more than 27,000 registered voters, yet our form of government is essentially the same as it was in the 1650’s. All other communities in New England with a population as large as ours have changed their form of government. Questions about our town government structure have persisted since the 1980s but gone no further than committees which favored the status quo. Nevertheless, a vote at a recent special town meeting and our recent conversations with residents indicate that there is strong public support for re-evaluating Open Town Meeting. For Andover to consider changing its structure of government, a new Charter Commission is required.

Open Town Meeting served Andover well for many years. However, Andover’s population has grown and diversified, and life and municipal governance have become more complex. As a result, it is now time to consider an alternative form of government that is more efficient, effective and representative. Specifically, Open Town Meeting has become:

  • Inefficient. Annual Town Meetings typically involve 3–4-hour meetings over multiple weekday evenings. The meetings are marked by lengthy and repetitious comments and frequent delays due to confusion. The 2024 Annual Town Meeting lasted seven hours over two weekday evenings. In addition, Special Town Meetings have become increasingly frequent in recent years. Since November 2023, there have been four Special Town Meetings, one within the Annual Town Meeting and three stand-alone Special Town Meetings, the latter of which cost the Town approximately $50,000 per meeting. These Special Town Meetings often address the interests of only a very limited group of residents.
  • Ineffective. Town Meeting is not suited for thoughtful deliberation on complex issues, such as changes to zoning bylaws, or on issues which are time-critical, such as budget and funding of capital projects. It also has proven unable to address core responsibilities, such as producing a balanced town budget; the 2024 Annual Town Meeting failed in this responsibility and a Special Town Meeting was needed to produce a balanced budget for FY 25.
  • Unrepresentative of Andover’s Population. Town Meetings are often attended by only 1% or 2% of Andover’s registered voters and, of those, only a handful stay until the end of the meeting, when important matters remain to be addressed. Better attended meetings, while still involving well under 10% of registered voters, tend to be driven by single-issue groups. Most importantly, Town Meeting simply is not accessible to many Andover residents. Whether because of parenting responsibilities, work schedules or physical limitations, many people are not able to devote the time necessary to participate. Remote voting is not allowed under Massachusetts law.

PART 2

By state law, an elected Charter Commission is the only way for Andover to change its form of government from Open Town Meeting to a more efficient, effective, representative, and democratic structure.

To place the question of creating a Charter Commission on the municipal ballot, a petition must be signed by at least fifteen percent of the voters of the city or town. For Andover, this requires approximately 4,000 certified signatures. Once these signatures are collected and certified, the question is placed on the ballot. If a majority of voters vote “Yes” at the election, a Charter Commission is created to consider changes and to recommend those changes to the voters at a subsequent election.

Once the required Charter Commission signatures are collected and certified, Andover residents will have the opportunity to run to be a member of the Charter Commission by collecting the signatures of 50 registered Andover voters during an announced time period. Those who meet this requirement will have their names placed on the same ballot as the Charter Commission question discussed above. If the Charter Commission question receives a majority vote, the nine candidates with the most votes will then be elected as members of the Commission.

After holding at least two public hearings and conducting all of its meetings in public, the Charter Commission conducts research, considers alternatives, and decides whether to recommend a change to the Charter and, if so, what form of government it recommends be in a new Charter. It must issue a report within eighteen months. This report must be published and made available to the public and submitted to the Select Board, which must order the charter proposal to appear on the ballot at the next regular municipal election. If a majority of voters vote in favor of the proposed new charter, it becomes effective immediately or on the date specified in the charter.

PART 3

Besides Open Town Meeting, state law permits three other forms of local government:

Representative Town Meeting
Representative Town Meetings typically have 150 – 200 members elected by precinct. Thirty-two communities have this form of government, although none has adopted it since 1989. Some towns find that there is limited competition for representative seats, while others note that attendance is sometimes a problem. Nationally, fewer than five percent have town meetings, mostly in smaller communities in New England.

Council/Manager Structure
A typical town council might have 13 or 15 members, with nine or ten representing a precinct and four or five elected from the entire town. The council is the legislative body approving the budget and local by-laws and hiring and evaluating a professional town manager. Town Councils often meet twice a month and perhaps more often during budget reviews in winter and spring. The Council/Manager form is utilized in about 60% of municipalities across the country.

Council/Mayor Structure
Most cities have an elected mayor, who serves as the chief executive, with a council similar to that described above, although three Massachusetts cities (Worcester, Cambridge, and Lowell) have a manager as the chief administrator and a mayor who is the leader of the city council. Some cities elect mayors who are well-liked, but not experienced in municipal government and may have more difficulty mastering the complexities of municipal finance and operations. The Council/Mayor form accounts for roughly 35% of municipalities.

Every form of government has its advantages and disadvantages. It will be the job of the Charter Commission to determine, with public input, which form of government best suits the needs of Andover and its citizens.

PART 4

First, you can sign the petition to put the Charter Commission question on the town election ballot. Sign The Petition Here.

Second, you can join us at an upcoming event in town where we’ll be gathering signatures or you can take a petition form and tell your friends and neighbors about this effort, share the link to this website with them, and ask them to sign as well. If you are a member of an Andover social or religious group, you might like to sponsor a meeting to have one of our members make a slide presentation and answer questions. (To obtain a copy of the petition form or to arrange a meeting, send an email to: [email protected])

Third, we would be grateful to receive contributions to offset the cost of materials and signs. Donate Here. THANK YOU!

PART 5

There are some significant differences between these prior committees and a Charter Commission. Most importantly, if a fundamental change is to be made to our form of government, it must be made through the Charter Commission process. Previous committees have studied Open Town Meeting at the behest of the Select Board and/or Town Manager; the Charter Commission, however, is a grassroots initiative. If a charter petition is successful, voters will elect the Commission’s members and vote on its concluding recommendations.  The rules and the timelines for these prior committees were ad hoc, with most of their recommendations going before Town Meeting, whereas the rules and timelines for a Charter Commission are set out in detail by State law in Chapter 43B. The Charter Commission must complete its work within 18 months through a public process of studying the current structure and exploring options. It concludes by recommending whether the town should keep or change its form of government and, if a change is recommended, by crafting a charter revision proposal.  The decision to accept or reject the Commission’s proposal is made by voters at the ballot box.

In 2019, a Town Governance Study Committee (TGSC) was appointed by the Town Manager, with the approval of the Select Board. The TGSC issued its report in December of 2021, recommending retention of Open Town Meeting. That report contains much useful information and will be a valuable resource to a future Charter Commission. Unfortunately, the process leading up to the issuance of the report and the report itself were flawed in several ways, including the following:

  • The TGSC did most of its work during the height of the pandemic and, as a result, public input to the group’s deliberations was limited.
  • The TGSC was dominated by members known to be proponents of the status quo. The group came to its conclusion to retain Open Town Meeting early in the process and justified its conclusion in the final report.
  • The TGSC did not conduct an analysis to determine whether those who do participate in Town Meeting are reflective of the town’s population with respect to many important demographic factors, including age, race, gender and economic status. As a result, it was unable to draw any meaningful conclusions as to whether those who do participate in Town Meeting are representative of the Town as a whole.
  • The TGSC’s analysis of participation rates in Town Meeting was deeply flawed; it inappropriately combined participation in multi-evening meetings and thus overstated participation; it created a new category of “engaged” voters and based most of its conclusions on that group, rather than on all Andover voters; and it failed to account for the common practice of people departing the meeting before its conclusion.
  • The TGSC did not consider the impact, financial and otherwise, of the increased frequency of Special Town Meetings.

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